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Arulius barb apparent illness

Hi guys and gals, I'm new to the forum and am posting because we are clearly losing one of our older and what had been hardier fish.

A little background...

Our tank a 55 gal freshwater with mostly plastic/silk plants and a few live. Its filtered with an aquaclear 700 HOB.

The tank is stocked with barbs only, tiger, black ruby and the arulius. We've had the tank running for about 4-5 years and have had a pretty good run for amateurs. We've had an issue with losing fish over the years and I can't seem to find rhyme or reason to it. Now we are losing my wifes favorite fish (she came with the tank...the fish, not the wife ;) )

I don't have current water conditions. But our water quality is always excellent as I do my changes every two weeks (or so) and our tank is very lightly stocked.

At this point we have 3 black rubys and two albino tigers and the one arulius. In the last few months we've lost quite a few fish, I'd say 5-6 total (can't remember off the top of my head) and we had another substantial and mysterious die off a year or two back. Losing our two Tin Foil barbs and several tiger barbs.

At this point I realize everyone is going to ask about water parameters and not having them obviously makes this more difficult but I'll post those tonight when I'm back at the tank, in the meanwhile I want to get the pictures up and see if there is any recommendations.

BTW I don't believe it to be water quality related.

The two points I feel are important to address the Tin Foils got pop eye and some other abscess looking issue and died over a few days to a week. At the time we had an undergravel filter that came with the tank and we left it all in tact for years. After too many fish had mysteriously wasted and died I removed it believing that there was a pathogen in there that would "hide" in the UG system.

We have since lost more fish and now believe one thing had nothing or little to do with the other.

The second is the fish get frozen brine shrimp and dry flake food supplemented with occasional peas or zucchini.

I have pictures of the Arulius aka "Barbie" but are too large to upload. I will see if I can correct that issue.

I don't know if its clear but there appear to be three white spots on the top of her head and they have spread in terms of discoloring more of here head and gills, there doesn't appear to be any "fuzz" or external parasites that I can see.

over the course of the last few months did the fish die one by one or all at once?
please elaborate on the water changes. how much water do you change each time? do you clean the gravel and clean the filter?
Not so sure what it could be but if I had to guess I would say that it Does have to do with water quality (popeye and abscesses are often signs of high organics) . you ideally should change your water at least 1 time per week and 50%. even in a lightly stocked tank a water change once every two weeks may not be enough to remove ALL of the nitrates that build up over the course of time. lets say that by the end of week 2 you have 20 ppm(parts per million) nitrates. you change the water and have 1 ppm nitrate left(and same thing with every following water change). over the course of time nitrates will build up and cause all kinds of issues we can't properly diagnose because the effects of an inadequate maintenance schedule are not immediate. nitrates past 20ppm will start causing issues for livestock. I would try changing a lot your water every few days and see if the fish improves. if it doesn't then we will be back at the drawing board.

I typically do about a 20-25% water change and I clean the gravel, filter media and generally a second filter media cleaning the next day. I take out a small amount of water from the tank, rinse out the foam media and then dispose of that water.

My nitrates rarely ever get to a point that the test detects a level, I am currently out of indicator for Nitrate and Nitrite. I just got a Ph of 7.2-7.4 which is very standard and the water always comes from the same source and test about the same. The ammonia level was less the 0.25 ppm and my last water change two and a half weeks ago was 20 gallons with a full gravel vacuuming.

At this point its relatively moot because Barbie passed away this afternoon while I was away. We're saying our good byes now.

I know its easy to say that its a water quality issue and it could well be the case, but I do my changes and every single time I've taken it into the two more reliable aquarium stores in my area (only to double check my results) they are often quite impressed that it is quite stable and rarely detects any levels outside of what would be considered safe if not ideal range.

I typically do about a 20-25% water change and I clean the gravel, filter media and generally a second filter media cleaning the next day. I take out a small amount of water from the tank, rinse out the foam media and then dispose of that water.

My nitrates rarely ever get to a point that the test detects a level, I am currently out of indicator for Nitrate and Nitrite. I just got a Ph of 7.2-7.4 which is very standard and the water always comes from the same source and test about the same. The ammonia level was less the 0.25 ppm and my last water change two and a half weeks ago was 20 gallons with a full gravel vacuuming.

At this point its relatively moot because Barbie passed away this afternoon while I was away. We're saying our good byes now.

I know its easy to say that its a water quality issue and it could well be the case, but I do my changes and every single time I've taken it into the two more reliable aquarium stores in my area (only to double check my results) they are often quite impressed that it is quite stable and rarely detects any levels outside of what would be considered safe if not ideal range.

If your ammonia reading is more than 0, especially in a tank that has been running for so long, your cycle has probably died, ie you do not have enough bacteria in your filter medium to do the business. Yes your tank is lightly stocked, but you still have a positive ammonia reading, which should by rights be zero. I would suggest checking the tank for a decomposing fish, and grab some nitrite/nitrate indicators. Go to the beginner freshwater forum and read the sticky on cycling with fish, once you have completed your cycle, tailor your wwater changes to maintain 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and less than 10 nitrates. You may also be cleaning your filter media too thoroughly - a quick rinse in tank water is generally all that is required

So I poorly wrote that post, I think in part because we were pretty upset about losing "Barbie"

Anyhow I rechecked my ammonia this morning and both today and yesterday the reading was 0.

My nitrites are always right about 0 and the nitrates also stay pretty low, I don't think I've ever seen 10 ppm on the nitrates. But I will definitely be getting new indicators today and posting a more accurate post.
Thank you for your input, I appreciate you taking the time.

Originally Posted by Dennis Bissett

If your ammonia reading is more than 0, especially in a tank that has been running for so long, your cycle has probably died, ie you do not have enough bacteria in your filter medium to do the business. Yes your tank is lightly stocked, but you still have a positive ammonia reading, which should by rights be zero. I would suggest checking the tank for a decomposing fish, and grab some nitrite/nitrate indicators. Go to the beginner freshwater forum and read the sticky on cycling with fish, once you have completed your cycle, tailor your wwater changes to maintain 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and less than 10 nitrates. You may also be cleaning your filter media too thoroughly - a quick rinse in tank water is generally all that is required

So I picked up some other tests just to get an idea of the tank conditions to give more detailed info...

GH- 60
KH- 120
PH- 7
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 20

This test and the previous test show the ph different but I rechecked and they both show the same numbers that they did on the previous test...meaning the one that showed 7.2 showed 7.2 both times and the one that showed 7 showed 7 for both tests.